Giving Older Workers an ADVANTAGE!

There’s a refreshingly new sparkle at St Luke’s Eldercare (SLEC), an extension project of St Luke’s Hospital, and one of the largest eldercare facilities in Singapore. The new buzz comes after they got hold of the ADVANTAGE! Scheme and were able to enhance their work processes for the benefit of their older workers, with more than 40% of its employees aged 55 and above.

Currently, SLEC have 11 centres island wide and has been providing quality day care, active rehab and wellness services to the elderly and seniors in the community since 2001. Since they signed on to the scheme, SLEC has significantly improved the work processes of their staff.

“We’ve benefitted from improvements in the job processes of the employees. Through mechanisation of tasks and the enhancement of the processes, the heavy weight borne by our mature employees is reduced and the overall efficiency and safety have increased,” said SLEC Operations Manager Sia Jia Hui. “This ultimately translates, very significantly, to better care for the elderly.”

Noteworthy examples

For a start, their entire fleet of passenger vans are now equipped with hydraulic wheelchair lifters to fetch the frail and the wheelchair-bound elderly. Previously, the care staff, many of them mature employees, had to lift the elderly up and down the van physically.

In the therapy rooms, treadmill hoists have been introduced for therapists and therapy assistants to help support frail patients when they are on the treadmill, a welcome change from the past when their full weight had to be borne by the staff. 

Around the centres, trolleys were introduced to transfer heavy physiotherapy rehab equipment and to serve food to their clients, further reducing the strain and stress on what used to be a physically-demanding role. Floor scrubbers and mopping trolleys were also added for mature employees to better handle the cleaning tasks and to ensure a safe environment for both employees and the elderly clients.

As a precaution, mature employees are issued back braces to ensure that they do not get injured in the course of work.

Re-Employment prospects

On the facilitation of the re-employment practices and the enhancement of the employment prospects of older workers, Ms Sia added: “The ADVANTAGE scheme definitely helps to retain mature workers as the work processes are now made easier. The job processes are also made more efficient. Furthermore, the items put in place helped to ensure a safer work environment. This translates into an improved work place.”

St Luke’s Eldercare has also sent its staff for the 4R (Recruit, Retain, Re-employ, Re-career) Programme to offer re-employment for older workers.

Ms Sia said the WDA schemes were “very good as it provides funding to purchase items that are useful but also comes with a hefty price tag, such as the treadmill hoist and floor scrubber. As a voluntary welfare organisation, the scheme’s funding helped us with the purchase of these items to improve work processes for the benefit of the mature workers. This also improved our services for the seniors we care for.”

The ADVANTAGE! Scheme is an initiative by Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA),  the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), which aims to help companies put in place HR systems to facilitate re-employment practices in preparation for re-employment legislation being introduced, as well as to enhance the employment prospects of older workers.

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